School Process and Teacher Job Satisfaction at Alternative Schools: A Multilevel Study Using SASS 2007–08 Data

Abstract

This study examined the associations between public alternative schools’ teacher job satisfaction and school processes. Based on a multilevel analysis of the national School and Staffing Survey 2007–08 data, we found that among the seven school processes, public alternative schools’ administrative support, staff collegiality, career and working condition, and positive student behavior had positive associations with teacher job satisfaction. More importantly, we noticed that higher level factors (e.g., administrative/resource support from school level or above) presented more impacts on teacher job satisfaction. Other factors’ impacts on teacher job satisfaction and relevant implications were discussed as well.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions to improve the quality of the article.

Notes

1. The sample size and the population both were rounded up to the closet 10 per rules of using the restricted data from NCES.

2. Here the ICC equation is: , where and are the estimates of level-1 and level-2 variances.

3. The proportion of variance explained at the second level of Model 2 over Model 1 is , where and are the estimates of level-2 variances of Model 1 and Model 2.

4. The proportion of variance explained at the second level of Model 3 over Model 2 is: , where and are the estimates of level-2 variances of Model 2 and Model 3.